Justice League **Spoilers from post 980 onward**

Drumpot

ThePott wrote: »

I've seen people make posts like this before and it's nonsense. The idea that DC's universe failed essentially because it wasn't Marvel.
It totally ignores that a film like Joker made a billion dollars or that or a film that is 'Marvelish' like a Birds of Prey underperformed.

Saying you like Snyder's 'chaotic, messy' style is fine but let's not act like it's for everyone and that the reason it isn't for everyone is because they're predisposed to liking Marvel. Blockbuster filmmaking works when you can satisfy all 4 quadrants. A Zack Snyder DC film is not that nor will it ever be, that's not anything to do with Marvel. even when the Marvel formula wasn't as well established as it is now people rejected Man of Steel. It's because if you hire a director like Zack Snyder and give him enough freedom he's going to make a Zack Snyder movie and that doesn't appeal to everyone, regardless of them liking Marvel or not.

You liking them or thinking they're great is fine but it's not going to be for everyone and people wanting a film more like an MCU entry doesn't necessarily mean they want a 'safer' film they probably want something that has the strengths of the MCU and their worldbuilding which is valid. Even though you say Aquaman is more 'Marvel', it's still a 2 and a half hour weird blockbuster film. I don't think that's a safebet and I can appreciate it for that even if I didn't like the film. You not being able to think of moments is just annecdotal for you, if anyone read the recent Empire magazine you'll see how many times moments from the Marvel universe have connected with people. Is there less 'moments', I don't think so maybe it's purely the amount of content has made them diluted.

It's cool Zack got to make films that are distinct and different and if you enjoy them great but their success or failure isn't a result of 'dumb' audiences or a predisposition to like Marvel. As for end credits scenes, they've been a thing before Marvel as much as they've been popularised by them, I think it at least doesn't disrupt the narrative or feel out of place like some sequel teasing elsewhere. I don't think your comparisons about Marvel/DC critiquing are accurate. Killing Tony's mom is a plot point and he references it but it's not like Cap and Iron Man stop fighting because of something that is total coincidence (I think better execution of the 'Martha' idea could have worked for the record just not the fact they have the same name.) I agree what others said too you can condense most films or arcs into a sentence, it means nothing, it's why we often have those 'badly explain a movie' tweets on Twitter.

It’s not nonsense at all. WW, Aquaman and Shazam all used the “marvel super hero movie for dummies” checklist. They were ok movies but you can’t get away from the fact they gave audiences what they wanted and what mainstream audiences wanted was more of the same, which is more marvel. That doesn’t mean Snyder’s movies are better, I wasn’t suggesting that, just pointing out I enjoy Snyder’s movies partially because they are so different.

Logan, Deadpool and the joker are not gargantuan household name characters like superman/Batman and they don’t suffer from the “not my superman/Batman” baggage. . But more importantly Out of those three Deadpool was the only conventional superhero movie. The other two were thrillers/dramas that just happened to have superhero’s in them, joker and Logan movies would both work as just dramas without any powers of any kind. Neither the main marvel or DC universes would work in that way.

Drumpot

pixelburp wrote: »

Never heard of that, but reminds of a reduction of Science Fiction, boiled down to two core story types: either the ordinary in an extraordinary world (so every "farm boy is the chosen one" style story), or the extraordinary in an ordinary world (eg, most urban fantasy these days Harry Potter).

Marvel's films look like mediocrity distilled, but in terms of character building, they've made more attempts to craft a set of distinct personas and arcs. The MCU operates as a grand experiment of storytelling, Infinity War & End-Game effectively functioning as a season finale.

Synders films are more visually distinct, but the character writing and plotting sucks. There's just no energy or reliability in any character;the Gods Among Men theme, mixed with Superpowers Are a Burden doesn't leave much room for ground-level, human sized personas.

Snyder didn’t have 18 movies to build the characters, it’s a bit disingenuous to use lack of character building against him in comparison to marvel.

It’s ironic that you are complaining about character development and some are complaining about the length of the movie and yet a lot of the added bits are him trying to flesh out some sort of story for the characters who didn’t have full movies to fall back on. Maybe if there had been a cyborg and flash standalone the movie could of been leaner but then we are going back towards the “if only DC did it more like marvel” discussion.

I think maybe DC tried to rush the universe to catch-up with Marvel. Given this, It actually makes more sense in this case to have a Snyder type director who will make a movie that will aim to be epic, but lacking in background story. It’s clear that Snyder was regularly at odds with the studio, not a great way to build a universe regardless of what you think of what he made. Marvel is a well oiled machine all pulling in same direction, filtering every movie to fit nicely into the universe. I’d like marvel to keep doing that because that works and that’s what I like, from Marvel. I’d like DC to try something different, even if it’s not with Snyder.

ThePott

pixelburp wrote: »

Never heard of that, but reminds of a reduction of Science Fiction, boiled down to two core story types: either the ordinary in an extraordinary world (so every "farm boy is the chosen one" style story), or the extraordinary in an ordinary world (eg, most urban fantasy these days Harry Potter).

Marvel's films look like mediocrity distilled, but in terms of character building, they've made more attempts to craft a set of distinct personas and arcs. The MCU operates as a grand experiment of storytelling, Infinity War & End-Game effectively functioning as a season finale.

Synders films are more visually distinct, but the character writing and plotting sucks. There's just no energy or reliability in any character; the Gods Among Men theme, mixed with Superpowers Are a Burden doesn't leave much room for ground-level, human sized personas.

I think the saying is a bit reductive of course but I do think it works as a broad stroke for the difference between them. I think you're right though and Marvel treating their universe as essentially a big budgeted version of a tv series is key to the success of what would be their lesser films.

Drumpot wrote: »

It’s not nonsense at all. WW, Aquaman and Shazam all used the “marvel super hero movie for dummies” checklist. They were ok movies but you can’t get away from the fact they gave audiences what they wanted and what mainstream audiences wanted was more of the same, which is more marvel. That doesn’t mean Snyder’s movies are better, I wasn’t suggesting that, just pointing out I enjoy Snyder’s movies partially because they are so different.

Logan, Deadpool and the joker are not gargantuan household name characters like superman/Batman and they don’t suffer from the “not my superman/Batman” baggage. . But more importantly Out of those three Deadpool was the only conventional superhero movie. The other two were thrillers/dramas that just happened to have superhero’s in them, joker and Logan movies would both work as just dramas without any powers of any kind. Neither the main marvel or DC universes would work in that way.

I'm sorry it is, at the very least it's a massive oversimplification. The movies you've named are the more acclaimed movies in this whole universe and the whole idea of a Marvel checklist is reductive. I think if you go into that checklist you'd see how wrong it is and how plenty of films would adhere to it. It's not just you I've heard saying this andagain liking Snyder's movies is fine but saying they 'failed' because they're not Marvel is just wrong, they're different but you can be different and succeed too. It didn't connect with audiences and that was not just because it wasn't Marvel.

The point I was making on Joker was not that it could fit into the main universe, the point I made is that people will happily embrace 'different' superhero movies if they are of good quality. There's plenty of room in the comic book genre for different types of films. Saying Logan isn't a conventional superhero movie is an easy out but no matter how you slice it, it's a comic book movie. Would they work as dramas, Yes. Would they have been successful without the comic book branding? Not as much. That cuts both ways, making a dark superhero film that's nihilistic and heavily reliant on commentary of flawed gods is different but is not going to appeal to everyone and a blockbuster needs to have mass appeal. It's why the Snyder films in this universe have failed, the Marvel 'checklist' keep their films having broad appeal and successful. The brand goes ahead of the director. People going to see a Zack Snyder Superhero film are getting more of the former than the latter, a Snyder film. That's fine if you enjoy that, plenty of people do. Not everyone will though and that's nothing to do with Marvel. It's because making a film that has more appeal to a wider audience and being of decent enough quality means it can succeed. Acting as if the Zack Snyder films not being what audiences wanted makes them any better isn't right. Again them being different is great but there's plenty of room to make a film different and successful, this route is not it.

johnny_ultimate

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is actually a pretty damn conventional superhero movie. The tone and cinematography may be different to Marvel, and the length is an obvious point of difference to the norm. But it hits all the beats of a standard superhero movie faithfully and even conservatively, and it absolutely turns into empty CG spectacle for long stretches of its running time. Its absurd, genocidal villains are IMO the epitome of boring-ass modern superhero antagonists, and none of the heroes have much depth (only Cyborg has a generous arc here). A few extra f-bombs and slightly more violence doesn’t suddenly make it some piece of great transgressive art.

I hate Batman v Superman, but to its credit it does at least have a different, divisive take on the characters (shallow though it may be). Even in this unrestrained form, Justice League is every bit the big budget modern blockbuster. It’s a much safer film than its predecessor, with a lot of its points of difference to the pack purely surface level.

Penn

Drumpot wrote: »

Snyder didn’t have 18 movies to build the characters, it’s a bit disingenuous to use lack of character building against him in comparison to marvel.

It’s ironic that you are complaining about character development and some are complaining about the length of the movie and yet a lot of the added bits are him trying to flesh out some sort of story for the characters who didn’t have full movies to fall back on. Maybe if there had been a cyborg and flash standalone the movie could of been leaner but then we are going back towards the “if only DC did it more like marvel” discussion.

I think maybe DC tried to rush the universe to catch-up with Marvel. Given this, It actually makes more sense in this case to have a Snyder type director who will make a movie that will aim to be epic, but lacking in background story. It’s clear that Snyder was regularly at odds with the studio, not a great way to build a universe regardless of what you think of what he made. Marvel is a well oiled machine all pulling in same direction, filtering every movie to fit nicely into the universe. I’d like marvel to keep doing that because that works and that’s what I like, from Marvel. I’d like DC to try something different, even if it’s not with Snyder.

The first Avengers movie was only the 6th movie, and even then Black Widow was only a side character in Iron Man 2 and Hawkeye only appeared in one scene in Thor. But even then we got to see the build up of most of the characters.

So I definitely agree that the issue with the DCEU is that WB tried to go far too quickly to try catch up with Marvel. BvS was the second movie of the DCEU, and they jumped into a story where Batman is retired, Robin was already killed by Joker, and then they did elements of The Dark Knight Returns, Doomsday & Death of Superman, setting up Justice League, glimpses to a future (Injustice/Knightmare) and introducing Wonder Woman. All in one movie. It led to some fantastic shots and scenes, but overall I think it ended up a mess.

I said before that it's like if Marvel did Iron Man, and then tried to do Civil War, then Captain Marvel, and then Infinity War.

Drumpot

ThePott wrote: »

I think the saying is a bit reductive of course but I do think it works as a broad stroke for the difference between them. I think you're right though and Marvel treating their universe as essentially a big budgeted version of a tv series is key to the success of what would be their lesser films.


I'm sorry it is, at the very least it's a massive oversimplification. The movies you've named are the more acclaimed movies in this whole universe and the whole idea of a Marvel checklist is reductive. I think if you go into that checklist you'd see how wrong it is and how plenty of films would adhere to it. It's not just you I've heard saying this andagain liking Snyder's movies is fine but saying they 'failed' because they're not Marvel is just wrong, they're different but you can be different and succeed too. It didn't connect with audiences and that was not just because it wasn't Marvel.

The point I was making on Joker was not that it could fit into the main universe, the point I made is that people will happily embrace 'different' superhero movies if they are of good quality. There's plenty of room in the comic book genre for different types of films. Saying Logan isn't a conventional superhero movie is an easy out but no matter how you slice it, it's a comic book movie. Would they work as dramas, Yes. Would they have been successful without the comic book branding? Not as much. That cuts both ways, making a dark superhero film that's nihilistic and heavily reliant on commentary of flawed gods is different but is not going to appeal to everyone and a blockbuster needs to have mass appeal. It's why the Snyder films in this universe have failed, the Marvel 'checklist' keep their films having broad appeal and successful. The brand goes ahead of the director. People going to see a Zack Snyder Superhero film are getting more of the former than the latter, a Snyder film. That's fine if you enjoy that, plenty of people do. Not everyone will though and that's nothing to do with Marvel. It's because making a film that has more appeal to a wider audience and being of decent enough quality means it can succeed. Acting as if the Zack Snyder films not being what audiences wanted makes them any better isn't right. Again them being different is great but there's plenty of room to make a film different and successful, this route is not it.

I’m not saying that there aren’t people who want different kind of super hero movies. But I believe the box office success of AM, WW and Shazam was mostly from cinema goers who are comfortable with the marvel movie ingredients and would basically they appealed to more simply by being more similar. I actually think you are actually agreeing with this point even though it reads like you are arguing agaisnt it.

Nolan’s Batman shows you can do different well but Snyder wasn’t hired to make a standalone movie like that or joker. The intention was always to compete with marvel and start a conveyor belt of movies and build a universe. Snyder was not given the same time to work with the characters but was afforded more freedom.

Snyder movies do seem to be either a love them or hate them kind of thing. I think if you hire him to make a movie you leave him to it and you will get a Snyder movie. Otherwise you get something nobody wants.

Drumpot

Penn wrote: »

The first Avengers movie was only the 6th movie, and even then Black Widow was only a side character in Iron Man 2 and Hawkeye only appeared in one scene in Thor. But even then we got to see the build up of most of the characters.

So I definitely agree that the issue with the DCEU is that WB tried to go far too quickly to try catch up with Marvel. BvS was the second movie of the DCEU, and they jumped into a story where Batman is retired, Robin was already killed by Joker, and then they did elements of The Dark Knight Returns, Doomsday & Death of Superman, setting up Justice League, glimpses to a future (Injustice/Knightmare) and introducing Wonder Woman. All in one movie. It led to some fantastic shots and scenes, but overall I think it ended up a mess.

I said before that it's like if Marvel did Iron Man, and then tried to do Civil War, then Captain Marvel, and then Infinity War.

I fondly think of them as a beautiful ,epic, imperfect mess to marvels clean cut, paint by numbers enjoyable franchise. Like spicy chicken wings and blue cheese sauce, both can work for me....

ThePott

Drumpot wrote: »

I’m not saying that there aren’t people who want different kind of super hero movies. But I believe the box office success of AM, WW and Shazam was mostly from cinema goers who are comfortable with the marvel movie ingredients and would basically they appealed to more simply by being more similar. I actually think you are actually agreeing with this point even though it reads like you are arguing agaisnt it.

Nolan’s Batman shows you can do different well but Snyder wasn’t hired to make a standalone movie like that or joker. The intention was always to compete with marvel and start a conveyor belt of movies and build a universe. Snyder was not given the same time to work with the characters but was afforded more freedom.

Snyder movies do seem to be either a love them or hate them kind of thing. I think if you hire him to make a movie you leave him to it and you will get a Snyder movie. Otherwise you get something nobody wants.

I'm agreeing in some regard but I think making it purely a point that it's because they are more 'Marvel-like' is deceptive. Conventional, maybe but I don't think it's that simple either. There's a lot of crossover between people who like Marvel and those films sure but I don't think people are rejecting a movie because it doesn't fit the Marvel mold either.

Again I don't put all the blame on Snyder. I think WB messed up in having him be at the forefront of the universe and wanted to rush to get to their 'Avengers'. We can say they didn't have time but they did, they just didn't commit in the same way. When all is said and done there was 4 years between the launch of the MCU and the Avengers. WB made Man of Steel and then waited 3 years to put out BVS which was overstuffed as the course corrected their universe so they could get to the team-up movie without it feeling earned.

That's not Zack Snyder's fault, he was hired and made a Zack Snyder flim. I've liked plenty of his films but he is not the guy to make a universe IMO and WB lacked the forethought or plan to come up with their own consistent plans. He wasn't the man for the job. He delivered something different which is fine but it was never going to see the same returns as a result.

pixelburp

Drumpot wrote: »

Snyder didn’t have 18 movies to build the characters, it’s a bit disingenuous to use lack of character building against him in comparison to marvel.

It’s ironic that you are complaining about character development and some are complaining about the length of the movie and yet a lot of the added bits are him trying to flesh out some sort of story for the characters who didn’t have full movies to fall back on. Maybe if there had been a cyborg and flash standalone the movie could of been leaner but then we are going back towards the “if only DC did it more like marvel” discussion.

Not every MCU film was dedicated to a single character though. The actual development for - say, Peter Quill - amounted to 2, 3 movies tops. It was just the bench of cast was huge. The point was merely that across the half dozen DC movies there was less character development. And I'm not holding anything against Synder, this was all DC's making through impatience and desperation to get the Justice League out there before 3 of the team had any time in the sun.

And it's not about "being Marvel" either per se, it's about good writing, good character development that you can hang the action around. Now, the debate can be where you insert this into the DC roster given many are basically gods (and to swing back to the MCU its most godlike characters like Captain Marvel are its weakest by far, so it's a not problem not exclusive to DC)

Mark Hamill

Drumpot wrote: »

It’s a shame that mainstream audiences have been effectively groomed by Marvel in what to expect from a mainstream superhero movie. It’s why Shazam, ww and Aquaman all did so well, could of been right off the marvel conveyor belt.

Can we please move past this nonsense that Marvel have brainwashed audiences?
Joker, an R-Rated super serious drama, made the same money as Aquaman (both ~1.1billion), more than Wonder Woman (~$830million) and about 3 times what Shazam did (~$366million).
What do all those films actually have in common? Coherent and consistent stories, directing, acting and dialogue. All stuff Snyder omits in favour of teenage edgelord darkness.

Drumpot

ThePott wrote: »

I'm agreeing in some regard but I think making it purely a point that it's because they are more 'Marvel-like' is deceptive. Conventional, maybe but I don't think it's that simple either. There's a lot of crossover between people who like Marvel and those films sure but I don't think people are rejecting a movie because it doesn't fit the Marvel mold either.

Again I don't put all the blame on Snyder. I think WB messed up in having him be at the forefront of the universe and wanted to rush to get to their 'Avengers'. We can say they didn't have time but they did, they just didn't commit in the same way. When all is said and done there was 4 years between the launch of the MCU and the Avengers. WB made Man of Steel and then waited 3 years to put out BVS which was overstuffed as the course corrected their universe so they could get to the team-up movie without it feeling earned.

That's not Zack Snyder's fault, he was hired and made a Zack Snyder flim. I've liked plenty of his films but he is not the guy to make a universe IMO and WB lacked the forethought or plan to come up with their own consistent plans. He wasn't the man for the job. He delivered something different which is fine but it was never going to see the same returns as a result.

I suppose I look at if from a POV that you could imagine those three DC standalone movies in the Marvel universe. I couldn’t see any of Snyder’s stuff getting into the Marvel stable and I don’t see him ever been hired by them. Again that’s purely discussing it from the POV that Snyder’s are different (not necessarily better) and it seems to be more popular with a niche audience.

Lots of science fiction in the 80s and 90s was compared and tried to copy Star Wars, mostly failing. It’s the same with marvel now who are the benchmark. That’s not their fault or necessarily a bad thing. But I believe WW, AM, and Shazam’s success and popularity was because they were superhero movies we are most used to at this stage and they “felt like superhero movies” the mainstream audience related to.

Let’s be honest , It’s not like the average audience are movie connoisseurs (neither am I, I am just making an observation) . The majority of the most financially successful movies are leave your brain outside popcorn movies with paint by number stories and their most unique quality being they appealed to large audiences (that’s what we generally want). So box office success and the rejection of the mainstream to Snyder’s movies doesn’t really tell us anything about how good or bad it actually is, just that his style of movies are not connecting with the masses.

senordingdong

ThePott wrote: »

Heard it said before that Marvel is trying to find the Extraordinary in the ordinary and DC is trying to find the Ordinary in the Extraordinary.

Iirc it was Snyder who said that. Specifically trying not to emulate marvel.

pixelburp

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Can we please move past this nonsense that Marvel have brainwashed audiences?
Joker, an R-Rated super serious drama, made the same money as Aquaman (both ~1.1billion), more than Wonder Woman (~$830million) and about 3 times what Shazam did (~$366million).
What do all those films actually have in common? Coherent and consistent stories, directing, acting and dialogue. All stuff Snyder omits in favour of teenage edgelord darkness.

Further to this, let's not pretend Hollywood has been anything other than a Race to be Second. No studio ever tries to be the trailblazer and many successes are accidental IMO. This has been true since year zero, and is easily seen in any other fad or genre. Of course DC copied Marvel; it was phenomenally successful, eventually, and naturally other studios tried to fast track their own universe. You don't even have to go that far back to see the last time this happened: take the Hunger Games as one example, spawning imitators, or Harry Potter and the Graveyard of Copycats.

The only difference now is that DC's stable can rival Marvel, so the imitation feels less egregious. But there's no mistaking the playbook here. It has been typical Hollywood. And it does the audience a disservice to think they're brainwashed by Marvel. When this fashion expires, they'll abandon the MCU quick enough.

The White Wolf

The edgelord insults are quite tedious and one of many stupid buzz words used by people on the internet to provoke an argument.

I don't see anything particularly edgy about what Snyder is doing other than making a big deal out of profanity, but Americans as a whole have a big issue over that and isn't just a teenage thing. Go on to any American forum and see how they infract and warn people for manipulating the censor feature to see this.

SMC92Ian

So the DCEU only failed because Marvel brainwashed me and that's why I didn't fawn over Snyder?

It wasn't the terrible writing and dialogue? The sub standard CGI? The rushed character development or random acts? Martha, Martha? Superman moaning 24/7? Batman and Superman fighting for NO REASON?

I really like parts of Snyders films but to me he's a music video director, he'd make killer music videos just not great movies.

Also as a "marvel fanboy" I have yet to watch GOTG2, Black Panther and a few others as us Marvel lot just don't accept everything. A lot of us have issues with Marvel but they do way many good things you can over look the bad. DCEU does too many glaring bad things you can't overlook.

Sucker Punch is also one of my all time favourite films so I'm not a hater.

I will say I did like Shazam as a Zac Levi fan and it actually had decent characters and a story. Aquaman and WW I turned off half way through as I found them boring. I walked out of Birds of Prey. WW84 I never bothered to watch even though I have it. SS is the worst film I've seen.

Drumpot

pixelburp wrote: »

Further to this, let's not pretend Hollywood has been anything other than a Race to be Second. No studio ever tries to be the trailblazer and many successes are accidental IMO. This has been true since year zero, and is easily seen in any other fad or genre. Of course DC copied Marvel; it was phenomenally successful, eventually, and naturally other studios tried to fast track their own universe. You don't even have to go that far back to see the last time this happened: take the Hunger Games as one example, spawning imitators, or Harry Potter and the Graveyard of Copycats.

The only difference now is that DC's stable can rival Marvel, so the imitation feels less egregious. But there's no mistaking the playbook here. It has been typical Hollywood. And it does the audience a disservice to think they're brainwashed by Marvel. When this fashion expires, they'll abandon the MCU quick enough.

It’s not about being brainwashed it’s about what the audience wants. You seem to be trying to imply that the general audience wants better story’s and characters but that’s not what the box office records tell us. People want movies that tick certain boxes and yes, those 3 DC movies had more similarities with marvel made movies then differences. They were familiar to audiences , probably more so on the lighter side of things and people who enjoy marvel movies wouid naturally prefer the lighter tone.

Marvel movies built up a fanbase and some of their movies did well on the back of the loyal following alone. The majority of film goers do not care about story or characters , they want to be entertained which is a very subjective and individually unique to individuals. You appear to be projecting variables that you require to enjoy a movie onto the general public that don’t think as deeply as that.

Drumpot

SMC92Ian wrote: »

So the DCEU only failed because Marvel brainwashed me and that's why I didn't fawn over Snyder?

Where did I say that?

Tony EH

So I rewatched 'Man of Steel' and 'Batman vs Superman' last night before I sit down to this behemoth. And they're still just ok superhero movies. Nothing special, but at the same time not the reasons for a meltdown that others claim them to be. They are average superhero movies albeit with a slightly darker tone and every stake comes across as higher than they do in the MCU because the characters actually take things seriously. I think Cavil does perfectly fine as Clark/Kal/Superman and Batfleck was fine as a middle aged totally fed up caped crusader, constantly being warned by Alfred but too blinded and jaded to hear his advice. Gadot was serviceable as Diana/Wonder Woman.

I didn't even mind Jessie Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. His take as an insane Mark Zuckerberg was kinda charming in it's own way. And I very much liked Michael Shannon as a completely unreasonable Zod chewing up every bit of scenery he could find. Kostner and Lane were well cast as Ma and Pa Kent, even if they were never going to achieve the simple rural charm that Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter had in the 1978 movie.

Frankly, their flaws and all, I consider them to much better movies that the stupidly overrated 'Wonder Woman' which seems to get a lot of praise for some reason. Frankly the best thing about that movie was the WW theme.

They are messy though, and the christ iconography started to get annoying. But to their credit I wasn't bored by them either, which I often feel when I am looking at a Marvel movie.

I also realised that I couldn't remember much at all about the 2017 release of 'Justice League' apart from Wayne visiting Norway(?) in search of Arthur Currie and Flash and Superman having a race at the end? So perhaps Snyder's version will be fresher for that.

ThePott

I don't think anyone is saying that box office indicates quality. There's enough Michael Bay Transformers films to prove that wrong. That being said looking at the highest grossing films they are generally of a decent quality. Zack Snyder making 'not-Marvel' films don't make them good neither does it discount some of the good films in the MCU.

Saying that DC films that are more 'Marvel-like' succeed with general audiences just isn't really valid when they've had films that are like Marvel that have underperformed and films that aren't like Marvel that have succeeded. Again you liking his films or appreciating them for being different is valid but acting like people rejected them because 1) They're not like Marvel or 2) Their box office isn't an indication of reception is just wrong. BvS had one of the worst second week drops in box office history and the fact it didn't make a billion dollars is indicative of it's failure. Good films fail and bad films succeed from time to time but no matter what metric you use or wherever you move the goalposts to Zack Snyder's DCEU output has been a disappointment critically and commercially. That doesn't mean it doesn't have an ardent and vocal fanbase but general audiences rejected them and for a film to succeed it doesn't need to be Marvel but it needs to be embraced by audiences and his films were not.

SMC92Ian

ThePott wrote: »

I don't think anyone is saying that box office indicates quality. There's enough Michael Bay Transformers films to prove that wrong. That being said looking at the highest grossing films they are generally of a decent quality. Zack Snyder making 'not-Marvel' films don't make them good neither does it discount some of the good films in the MCU.

Saying that DC films that are more 'Marvel-like' succeed with general audiences just isn't really valid when they've had films that are like Marvel that have underperformed and films that aren't like Marvel that have succeeded. Again you liking his films or appreciating them for being different is valid but acting like people rejected them because 1) They're not like Marvel or 2) Their box office isn't an indication of reception is just wrong. BvS had one of the worst second week drops in box office history and the fact it didn't make a billion dollars is indicative of it's failure. Good films fail and bad films succeed from time to time but no matter what metric you use or wherever you move the goalposts to Zack Snyder's DCEU output has been a disappointment critically and commercially. That doesn't mean it doesn't have an ardent and vocal fanbase but general audiences rejected them and for a film to succeed it doesn't need to be Marvel but it needs to be embraced by audiences and his films were not.

It really does show how well the MCU is doing because 5-10 years ago nobody in the world cared about or knew who Iron Man or &90 of the characters were.

If it wasn't for how massive Batman and Superman are I wonder how badly Snyder's films would of truly done? I know people who only went to them because of the names alone, he was lucky it was two of the biggest in the world otherwise they'd of bombed even harder.

Penn

ThePott wrote: »

I don't think anyone is saying that box office indicates quality. There's enough Michael Bay Transformers films to prove that wrong. That being said looking at the highest grossing films they are generally of a decent quality. Zack Snyder making 'not-Marvel' films don't make them good neither does it discount some of the good films in the MCU.

Saying that DC films that are more 'Marvel-like' succeed with general audiences just isn't really valid when they've had films that are like Marvel that have underperformed and films that aren't like Marvel that have succeeded. Again you liking his films or appreciating them for being different is valid but acting like people rejected them because 1) They're not like Marvel or 2) Their box office isn't an indication of reception is just wrong. BvS had one of the worst second week drops in box office history and the fact it didn't make a billion dollars is indicative of it's failure. Good films fail and bad films succeed from time to time but no matter what metric you use or wherever you move the goalposts to Zack Snyder's DCEU output has been a disappointment critically and commercially. That doesn't mean it doesn't have an ardent and vocal fanbase but general audiences rejected them and for a film to succeed it doesn't need to be Marvel but it needs to be embraced by audiences and his films were not.

Completely agree. So much of Marvel's box office success comes from good word-of-mouth reviews (not just media reviews) and people going for a second (or more) viewing. Snyder's movies, particularly BvS simply didn't get that due to issues people have had with those movies. Them not being in the same vein as Marvel movies is irrelevant, especially with the brand recognition the DC characters have. There are things Snyder does better than most of the Marvel movies, and some of the highs his movies can hit are fantastic. But it's some of the choices in between those bits that makes the lows too awful to look past for most of the audience.

Penn

Just noticed the Whedon Justice League is on ITV2 this evening, 6:35.

Drumpot

The White Wolf wrote: »

The edgelord insults are quite tedious and one of many stupid buzz words used by people on the internet to provoke an argument.

I had to look up what edgelord was :pac:

I wasnt trying to be edgy or insulting, just saying things as I see them but Let me address the statement that seems to of upset some of you.

Drumpot wrote: »

It’s a shame that mainstream audiences have been effectively groomed by Marvel in what to expect from a mainstream superhero movie. It’s why Shazam, ww and Aquaman all did so well, could of been right off the marvel conveyor belt. And now we have DC doing the end credit scene to try and disguise their product more like marvel.

I was not implying people are brainwashed or stupid, I think some of you over think these things. I believe most people goto comicbook movies to be entertained, but they have certain expectations of what they think they will be watching. Marvel has dominated the cinemas with their superhero movies and effectively cornered the market and built up a strong fanbase and a strong general audience following.

But we have been groomed to expect standalone hero movies to be setting up the next one and fit into a larger universe. We have been groomed to expect more light hearted comicbook movies (in the wider universe department). We have been groomed to expect teasers at the end of a comicbook movie. Dont tell me at least some of you havent been in the cinema for a non marvel movie and had a moment where you were wondering if there will be something during or after the credits. It really is a testament to how much of an influence Marvel have had in the industry, probably comparable with SWs in what sci fi movies of its like will be benchmarked against.

So lets say we didnt have any marvel movies and WW came out, one would of expected it to get maybe even half the box office it actually got, more comparable with Iron man that was a solid movie (far better then WW IMO) but was kind of the start of the new superhero movie era. WW/AM and Shazam (to lessor degree) have all benefited from the popular style of marvel movies that people enjoy. Hell DC didnt even try to hide the fact that they are going for more marvel kind of movies by hiring Whedon to change JL. I do not see this as a particularly controversial thing to say.

There are multiple reasons why Snyders DC universe has been abandoned (not all his own fault) but its not simply because they are objectively bad movies. Like cult movies that arent appreciated when they come out , Snyder tried a style thats not been popular enough to build up a fanbase. It is not more popular then the Marvel template, thats just a fact. Certain movies getting a good box office taking is not an indication that they are better or have superior writing or directors, it just means they are more popular and in marvels case they will get a good box office regardless of quality.

pixelburp

Drumpot wrote: »

It’s not about being brainwashed it’s about what the audience wants. You seem to be trying to imply that the general audience wants better story’s and characters but that’s not what the box office records tell us. People want movies that tick certain boxes and yes, those 3 DC movies had more similarities with marvel made movies then differences. They were familiar to audiences , probably more so on the lighter side of things and people who enjoy marvel movies wouid naturally prefer the lighter tone.

Marvel movies built up a fanbase and some of their movies did well on the back of the loyal following alone. The majority of film goers do not care about story or characters , they want to be entertained which is a very subjective and individually unique to individuals. You appear to be projecting variables that you require to enjoy a movie onto the general public that don’t think as deeply as that.

I'm not suggesting anything about what I think the audience wants; not in that quoted post. Not yet. Keep reading Only that Hollywood follows trends, it doesn't set them. DC tried to copy Marvel because the market said the Marvel format was super popular - but without putting in the groundwork to figure out the why (again, copycats of Harry Potter were a good historical example of this; be it Eragon, Percy Jackson, Narnia and so on, they all failed to figure out the formula).

As to audience tastes, I think you do them a discredit - but then it depends. Do we mean western audiences? Or Chinese ones? Both expect very different things. China's basically keeping the Transformers franchise alive, a series whose success would argue even basic cinematic coherence isn't a necessity. While Christopher Nolan single-handedly demonstrates audiences will go with a complex idea if you give them a chance and respect.

To the MCU? Well, its action scenes are forgettable - and frequently badly shot TBH - while cinematically they're dull to look at. So clearly there's more going on because if it's just superficial thrills they're not the standard-bearer here. What it had/has is a deep bench of characters who are often memorable, relatable, likeable, magnetic and so on. And this was arguably enforced: Marvel's biggest hitters in 2008 were at Fox or Sony (X-Men and Spider-Man), so all they had were the C-listers of Thor, Iron Man et al (sorry to Marvel fans, but they were ), so they couldn't just rely on brand recognition, they had to give these people arcs, flaws and journeys to go on. And if you want a legitimate example of good character work in the MCU, then Guardians of the Galaxy's Peter Quill is a genuinely interesting, complex character, wrapped within a whacky space opera featuring a talking tree.

bennyl10

pixelburp wrote: »

Watched the first hour, and ... well. I kinda don't know what to say really. No doubt this will be dissected for years to come, and act as a rallying cry for every agrieved fan, yearning for cuts of films. The first hour went exactly how I thought it was going to, and so scarcely experienced anything I'd have called enjoyment. I never liked the Synderverse / murderverse to begin with so was never expecting this to change my mind. I mean for sure, it was (so far) a significant improvement on the 2017 version, but really what does that say? Not a lot, given the theatrical film's shoddy state.

My only other thoughts circled around a few moments:

- You know what? I preferred the 2017 opening; the "cry heard across the world" was overwrought - even for Synder.
- I had forgotten Synder made the choice to have Gotham and Metropolis exist across a bay/inlet/channel from each other. I suspect that was some kind of Ying, Yang metaphor, born from each city's most famous costumed residents. It still sucks IMO.
- It was often obscured by shadow, but of course Synder's Amazonian warriors wore metal bikinis. It's a tiny thing in the scheme of things but can really highlight the different attitudes two separate creatives can have towards the same idea.
- To the murderverse point, whatever about Bats & Supes, Wonder Woman's murder spree during her big "intro" fight felt especially egregious; most likely because the Patty Jenkins films - especially the sequel - made pains to show Diana as fundamentally non-violent and inspirational. Oh boy, not here. Splat, went the skulls, CGI(?) blood n' all.
- No amount of slow motion & colour grading can hide Ben Affleck's utter disinterest in the role at this point.

Fundamentally non violent WW?

You mean apart from kidnapping a man from his life and family to fulfill her loneliness?

And straight up murdering people in the Middle East

Drumpot

Penn wrote: »

Completely agree. So much of Marvel's box office success comes from good word-of-mouth reviews (not just media reviews) and people going for a second (or more) viewing. Snyder's movies, particularly BvS simply didn't get that due to issues people have had with those movies. Them not being in the same vein as Marvel movies is irrelevant, especially with the brand recognition the DC characters have. There are things Snyder does better than most of the Marvel movies, and some of the highs his movies can hit are fantastic. But it's some of the choices in between those bits that makes the lows too awful to look past for most of the audience.

Marvel have built up a great product over a decade, its not simply word of mouth, its creating a loyal fanbase. Iron Man 1 made under 600 million , iron ma 3 was double that taking. CA and Thor made under 450million, both over 650 million on their second outings, WS was brilliant, probably one of marvels best but Thor 2 made only slighty less money so quality of product with Marvel does not necessarily correlate with box office returns. As the movies moved from Phase 1 to 2 to 3, they were able to make 600 million for nothing characters to mainstream audiences.

So when a person goes to see any Marvel movie the know what they are going to get. When they were going to Snyders BvS or JL, its not really going to be the same kind of tone. You will know this not a marvel movie. So then WW , AM and Shazam come out, they are comparable in tone to Marvel movies and people who are not as invested as some in here, but do enjoy a marvel movie, would of enjoyed it more. If you were recomending WW to a friend you could say its like CA origin story. You could say Aquaman is kind of like thor under water. You could say Shazam is kind of goofy, maybe a bit more like a GOTG with just starlord. You cant compare Snyder movies with marvel movies.

Look at Batman Begins, made less then pretty much every marvel movie but is probably significantly better in most departments. The Dark Knight didnt top 1 billion , is that a lessor film then then all the marvel movies that did better ? It certainly is not inferior. I think some of you underestimate how well Marvel have got us hooked on their product. I do not know how many times a new marvel movie was coming out and I wasnt interested in seeing it but went anyway. Wasnt great writing, wasnt great characters, wasnt great stories, just was a marvel movie and I was comfortable with what I was gonna get. I think most people are like that, so I am not insulting (brainwashed) the majority of people who goto these movies, I am relating to them.

Drumpot

pixelburp wrote: »

I'm not suggesting anything about what I think the audience wants; not in that quoted post. Not yet. Keep reading Only that Hollywood follows trends, it doesn't set them. DC tried to copy Marvel because the market said the Marvel format was super popular - but without putting in the groundwork to figure out the why (again, copycats of Harry Potter were a good historical example of this; be it Eragon, Percy Jackson, Narnia and so on, they all failed to figure out the formula).

As to audience tastes, I think you do them a discredit - but then it depends. Do we mean western audiences? Or Chinese ones? Both expect very different things. China's basically keeping the Transformers franchise alive, a series whose success would argue even basic cinematic coherence isn't a necessity. While Christopher Nolan single-handedly demonstrates audiences will go with a complex idea if you give them a chance and respect.

To the MCU? Well, its action scenes are forgettable - and frequently badly shot TBH - while cinematically they're dull to look at. So clearly there's more going on because if it's just superficial thrills they're not the standard-bearer here. What it had/has is a deep bench of characters who are often memorable, relatable, likeable, magnetic and so on. And this was arguably enforced: Marvel's biggest hitters in 2008 were at Fox or Sony (X-Men and Spider-Man), so all they had were the C-listers of Thor, Iron Man et al (sorry to Marvel fans, but they were ), so they couldn't just rely on brand recognition, they had to give these people arcs, flaws and journeys to go on. And if you want a legitimate example of good character work in the MCU, then Guardians of the Galaxy's Peter Quill is a genuinely interesting, complex character, wrapped within a whacky space opera featuring a talking tree.

I've sort of responded to some of this in my previous post.

I dont believe audiences are that complicated to be honest. Sometimes its the right movie , right actor at the right time, not necessarily based on the quality of the product. Imagine Downey Jr wasnt Iron man (he was a gamble back then), imagine Dougrey Scott had been wolverine, no amount of nice story would of compensated for what they brought to their roles. Downey has been the face of the franchise as has Wolverine where X men squeeze him in at every opportunity.

I had heard of Thor and captain america but not Iron man before Downey had the role. I had never heard of Wolverine before he was played by Jackman. I think its fair to say alot of people would be the same as most people were not avid comicbook fans following the movie.

I think theres different demographics within this debate. I dont see Nolan movies appealing to the majority of people who goto Marvel movies, probably more comparable with those who watched Joker and Logan. I just think Marvel as a uniquely branded product thats about churning out innofencive, fun super hero movies that we all feel the familiar comfort of watching. This is what flim studios want with Marvel , SWs, DC and all those franchises, they want to appeal to the most amount of people in a way that offends the least.

Penn

Drumpot wrote: »

Marvel have built up a great product over a decade, its not simply word of mouth, its creating a loyal fanbase. Iron Man 1 made under 600 million , iron ma 3 was double that taking. CA and Thor made under 450million, both over 650 million on their second outings, WS was brilliant, probably one of marvels best but Thor 2 made only slighty less money so quality of product with Marvel does not necessarily equate to box office returns. As the movies moved from Phase 1 to 2 to 3, they were able to make 600 million for nothing characters to mainstream audiences.

So when a person goes to see any Marvel movie the know what they are going to get. When they were going to Snyders BvS or JL, its not really going to be the same kind of tone. You will know this not a marvel movie. So then WW , AM and Shazam come out, they are comparable in tone to Marvel movies and people who are not as invested as some in here, but do enjoy a marvel movie, would of enjoyed it more. If you were recomending WW to a friend you could say its like CA origin story. You could say Aquaman is kind of like thor under water. You could say Shazam is kind of goofy, maybe a bit more like a GOTG with just starlord. You cant compare Snyder movies with marvel movies.

Look at Batman Begins, made less then pretty much every marvel movie but is probably significantly better in most departments. The Dark Knight didnt top 1 billion , is that a lessor film then then all the marvel movies that did better ? It certainly is not inferior. I think some of you underestimate how well Marvel have got us hooked on their product. I do not know how many times a new marvel movie was coming out and I wasnt interested in seeing it but went anyway. Wasnt great writing, wasnt great characters, wasnt great stories, just was a marvel movie and I was comfortable with what I was gonna get. I think most people are like that, so I am not insulting (brainwashed) the majority of people who goto these movies, I am relating to them.

Marvel absolutely built something which means due to the interconnectivity of their films, people will go see almost all the movies. But that was built off some of their C-list characters, especially Iron Man. Characters who most people would never or barely have heard of.

DC started with three of the oldest, most recognisable superheroes in history, and especially with Batman coming off the back of Nolan's trilogy. The fact they weren't Marvel movies or even the success of the Marvel movies is irrelevant because DC could have built their own version of what Marvel had, but in their own style. But the reason DC couldn't build their DCEU off the back of them boils down to one simple thing; those first few movies had significant issues that turned people away. It's not the fact they don't match the Marvel style (as per Logan, Deadwood, Joker, The Dark Knight Trilogy). It's that people didn't enjoy them as much.

Drumpot

Penn wrote: »

Marvel absolutely built something which means due to the interconnectivity of their films, people will go see almost all the movies. But that was built off some of their C-list characters, especially Iron Man. Characters who most people would never or barely have heard of.

DC started with three of the oldest, most recognisable superheroes in history, and especially with Batman coming off the back of Nolan's trilogy. The fact they weren't Marvel movies or even the success of the Marvel movies is irrelevant because DC could have built their own version of what Marvel had, but in their own style. But the reason DC couldn't build their DCEU off the back of them boils down to one simple thing; those first few movies had significant issues that turned people away.

That’s true to an extent. But it’s also true that marvel , by bringing in less known characters , had less baggage to deal with. Superman killing Zod. Smallville and metropolis being destroyed. Not my Batman/superman nonsense affected what could be done and the studios reactions.

I don’t think Nolan’s movies helped either as anybody who watched them and went to BvS would of been horrified by the difference. It anything Nolan set the bar so high , the only way was down. Imagine Nolan had made a really popular avengers trilogy before the Downey iron man!!! So marvel could do what they wanted with those characters and nobody had any other movies to compare them with..

Again , if they had chosen somebody else to be Ironman (not Downey) , might things of worked out differently? I think a number of things worked in marvels favour, including the time they took to build the characters that worked against Snyder. I actually think Snyder chose his actors well but the baggage of older movies, fans expectations on the characters, DC forcing so much into movies and marvels really popular brand gave him a very tough job to bring out a movie that would navigate all these issues.

That’s not to say another director or another vision might work, I just think it was nearly the perfect storm that worked against Snyder. I do get the impression that some people just don’t like Snyder’s directing style so maybe it was never going to work and he would be better off on the likes of the watchmen.

Snake Plisken

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjEAnzF8iWU